The Central Iowa Metro League (also called CIML) is a high school athletic conference whose members are located in the suburban cities of

Des Moines, Iowa Des Moines is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Iowa, most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is the county seat of Polk County, Iowa, Polk County with parts extending into Warren County, Iowa, Wa ...

. The conference includes 9 schools, all of which compete at the 5A classification level, which is for the largest schools.

Member schools

There are currently 9 members of the Central Iowa Metro League (CIML):

History

Since its founding, the Central Iowa Metro League was a league composed of metropolitan schools in central Iowa. The conference, for many years, consisted of just 14 schools: the 5 Des Moines schools, Ankeny, Ames, Valley, Dowling, Indianola, Marshalltown, Southeast Polk, Newton and Urbandale. In 1992, Mason City and Fort Dodge joined the conference, leaving the Big Eight, which had recently been decimated by other conference realignments. With these two new additions the conference split into two divisions. Ottumwa and Johnston joined the conference later in the 1990s to make the CIML an 18 team conference, splitting the conference into a three division format. For the 2006–07 athletics season, Waukee joined the conference, replacing Newton, who joined the Little Hawkeye Conference. The three division format comprised the Central, Iowa, and Metro Conferences, organized like this: In the fall of 2013, the Ankeny Community School District split into two high schools, with both Ankeny High and Ankeny Centennial competing at the 4A level. In anticipation of adding Centennial to the League, the League approved the current four division format, beginning it in the 2012–13 school year, with Centennial joining the next year. In 2015 the CIML was restructured for the 2016–2018 school years. The three division format, which comprises the Central, Iowa, and Metro Conferences, was reorganized like this: Representatives from the 12 schools of the Central Iowa Conference (Ames, Ankeny, Centennial, Dowling Catholic, Ft. Dodge, Johnston, Marshalltown, Mason City, Southeast Polk, Urbandale, Valley (WDM), and Waukee) of the Central Iowa Metropolitan League met on Wednesday, February 4 in Johnston to discuss the realignment of the league moving forward. In previous discussions, the league was to be divided with the five Des Moines Public Schools, Ottumwa, and Indianola, in one conference and then the other 12 schools in two conferences. Since that time, Indianola has announced it will depart the CIML for the Little Hawkeye Conference in the 2016-2017 school year. As a result of that decision and action taken on February 4, the following recommendation will be made to the Council of Activities’ Directors for approval on February 25, 2015, and then the Principals of the league in a subsequent meeting thereafter. A second Waukee high school, Northwest, opened in the fall of 2021 to compete in the CIML. On March 1, 2021, nine high schools made the announcement to leave the CIML and form a new conference. These schools included Ames, Fort Dodge, Marshalltown, Mason City, and Ottumwa, as well as the five public Des Moines schools (East, Hoover, Lincoln, North, and Roosevelt). The schools left the conference for the 2022–23 season to create a new conference. The withdrawal was due to a low percentage in wins from the non-suburban schools in the conference. The new conference was called the

Iowa Alliance Conference The Iowa Alliance Conference is a high school athletic conference whose members are mostly located in the metropolitan areas of central Iowa, with five of the schools being from the Des Moines Independent Community School District. The conferen ...

, and will include ten former CIML teams as well as East High, Waterloo.

Sports

The conference offers the following sports: * Fall —

Volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

, boys' cross-country, girls' cross-country, boys'

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

and girls'

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, such as saltwater or freshwater environments, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Swimmers achieve locomotion by coordinating limb and body movements to achieve hydrody ...

. * Winter — Boys'

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

, girls' basketball,

bowling Bowling is a Throwing sports#Target sports, target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a bowling ball, ball toward Bowling pin, pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). Most references to ''bowling'' are ...

wrestling Wrestling is a martial art, combat sport, and form of entertainment that involves grappling with an opponent and striving to obtain a position of advantage through different throws or techniques, within a given ruleset. Wrestling involves di ...

and boys' swimming. * Spring — Boys'

track and field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

, girls' track and field, boys'

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

, girls' soccer, boys'

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

, girls' tennis and girls' golf. * Summer —

Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

and

softball Softball is a Variations of baseball, variation of baseball, the difference being that it is played with a larger ball, on a smaller field, and with only underhand pitches (where the ball is released while the hand is primarily below the ball) ...

. The CIML, like all other conferences in Iowa, does not sponsor football. The IHSAA has a separate classification system for football, and competition is set up in districts separate from conference affiliation. Although the member schools field freshman — and in some cases, junior varsity — teams in many of the above-mentioned sports, conference championships are determined at sophomore and varsity levels only.

References

* http://www.cimlcentral.org/

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Central Iowa Metro League High school sports conferences and leagues in the United States High school sports in Iowa